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| Drinks station: A runner makes use of a pub in the first London Marathon in 1981. |
JUST when we thought we’d heard it all before, there was remarkable
news this week about alcohol and its effect on your running.
Apparently a few beers the night before a big run has been
scientifically demonstrated to be beneficial.
But only if you’re a woman!
Yes, men are generally bigger and bulkier and can therefore absorb
the hard stuff in bigger quantities and more efficiently than the fairer sex. We
all understand that. But now we’re being told that women who down three or four
pints will apparently run better the next morning! And men who do the same thing
definitely won’t!
When this startling new research appeared in the press last
week, your Clapped-Out Runner was quick
to scoff. After all, these days many of us regard the good old Daily Mail as little more than a reactionary
tabloid rag masquerading as a serious middle-class newspaper. However, on closer
scrutiny, I discovered the findings actually emerged from an experiment staged
by Runners’ World magazine - and the ‘guinea
pigs’ were proper, experienced runners.
The results were described as ‘astonishing’ – and, for once,
the Daily Mail’s hyperbole seemed
justified.
The splendidly-named Dr.Gig Leadbetter, from Colorado Mesa
University's Human Research Lab, led the research. She tested five male and
five female runners with the aim of discovering the effects of moderate drinking
on the next day's running performance. The subjects, all aged between 29 and 43
and all of whom regularly ran around 35
miles a week, were described as moderate drinkers who knocked back a bit less
than the official recommended weekly allowance.
The main experiment was split into two parts - The Beer Run
and The Exhaustion Run.
The Beer Run saw them go for a 45-minute evening run at 'reasonably
high intensity'. Immediately afterwards out came the beers. They were each
closely monitored and had to stop drinking once they reached a level of 70mg of
alcohol per 100ml of blood. For some of those tested, this apparently required necking
four pints of the golden nectar.
The Exhaustion Run then followed the next morning. They were
asked to run at about 80% effort for as long as they could tolerate.
All of this happened twice, once with a genuinely strong
beer being used, and once, unbeknown to the runners, with a placebo brew
involved.
Amazingly, ALL the women registered considerably better
times after a night on the beer, running on average 22 per cent longer than
when they had the placebo. The men, however, lagged behind after drinking the hard
stuff, becoming 21 per cent worse runners the morning after!
Dr.Leadbetter, a runner herself, admitted it would be wrong to
jump to firm conclusions based on such a small sample, but said if similar results
were to come from further studies then the findings would be very important.
As many of us know only too well, there’s nothing better than
an ice-cold beer after a long run, and over the years many good distance runners
have openly admitted they indulge fairly heavily. Some coaches have even been
known to encourage athletes to drink the night before a race, believing it helped
with stamina and energy.
One top runner famously fond of his beer was the brilliant 1970s
superstar Dave Bedford. The story goes that in March 1981 Bedford was enjoying himself
in the Luton nightclub which he owned, when a drunken bet was struck,
challenging him to run the very first London Marathon being staged the following
morning. Bedford phoned organiser Chris
Brasher in the middle of the night and insisted on being given a place in the race.
The exhausted Brasher, in urgent need of
his sleep, told Bedford he could do what the hell he liked and to get off the
phone!
Bedford was unfit, full of lager and pina coladas, but got himself
to the rain-soaked start-line in Greenwich Park. An hour or two later the
cameras captured him being violently sick during the race, but after finishing in
a respectable time, Bedford reckoned his throwing-up had been due to the curry
he’d eaten at 3a.m. rather than the alcohol!
Excessive drinking is clearly not a good thing, but there
have been plenty of media messages about the health benefits of a daily glass
of red wine. Portuguese runner Antonio Pinto, a vineyard owner himself, was
said to have enjoyed more than just a glass a day, and he won the London Marathon
three times!
On the other hand, there are runners for whom drinking even
a tiny amount of alcohol on the eve of a race or a hard run would be a recipe
for disaster. We should also beware the mindset that we can always ‘run it off’
and get away with more because we’re fitter than the average drinker. According
to the American College of Sports Medicine: “Alcohol abuse is as prevalent in
the athletic community as it is in the general population.”
Perhaps the runners who should take most care are those in
Ipswich. I hear that some of the alcohol on sale in Suffolk’s county town is
pretty toxic stuff: It was reported last week that you could buy a single
bottle of cider for £3.99, which contains 22.5 units of alcohol – more than the
recommended WEEKLY upper limit!
A reporter from my old workplace, the Evening Star, found three-litre bottles of Frosty Jack’s cider (7.5%
proof) on sale in the town for under £4.
Let’s hope that particular establishment won’t be supplying the catering for any Ipswich
JAFFA or Ipswich Harriers social events!
Most runners like a drink, but know what their body can cope
with. I’ll leave the last word to a Daily Mail reader who responded to the
recent publicity with details of his own training regime: “I am now 53,” he wrote. “I drink four or five pints a night.
I get up at 4a.m., eat a banana and a handful of raisins, leave the house at 5a.m.
and run 18k before doing a day’s work, five days a week. Not bad for an old
fart?”
Not bad indeed.
* Champion runners of yesteryear Alf Shrubb and Walter George liked a beer or two, while ultra-running
pioneer Arthur Newton was a big fan of cigars. Check out their amazing life stories,
written by Rob Hadgraft and published by Desert Island Books, at www.robhadgraft.com
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